You know, raising a kid is a full time job. And more importantly, I feel, it's a huge responsibility one takes upon. You know, the enviroment the kids grows up in plays a huge role in making up his personality. Offlate I read some articles in paper about parents who braved the world and homeschooled their kids. I was inspired. Bold parents with an amazing vision for their kids, thought I.
Anywho, I'm not that brave. But I decided to be a good influence on him, teach him stuff, encourage him to think, kindle his creativity, all at the same time. Phew ! Ambitious isn't it.
The very next day, I did some information gathering, read up on some articles and spent an entire day mulling over what fact I could give my curious little one.
With pride exuding out of my face, I went next to my son and gave him a huge grin. He was busy playing with his new acquisition, a voice manipulator and amplifier. He was thrilled to hear his voice like an alien and like a robot.. desperate to get his attention, I grabbed him and hugged him tight. He gave me the weird look, however, he broke into a smile and said," Ma , check this out. It's kool". I gave him and the amplifier 15 mins of attention , and then I slowly asked him," Baby, you know, sometimes, we get goosebumps .. You know what goosebumps are isn't it.. Do you know why we get them? "
He looked at me with rapt attention and said," Yaa.. when we feel cold, we get them".
"Yeah, but do you know why we get it when we feel cold ?"
( I love to share knowledge.. I think it makes my soul happy.. I should've become a teacher isn't it .. it's still not too late.. fingers crossed. Oh dear.. I've deviated from the topic at hand. Looks like I didn't become a teacher for a good reason !! )
Let's start right from the very beginning. We, humans, homosapiens, have evolved from the apes. We've come a long way haven't we.. we don't look like the apes at all. For one, we've lost the fur.
When the ape is threatened and scared, (God or) evolution gifted him with goosebumps.( Stay with me ) So now, when he gets these goosebumps, the hair in his fur stands upright and straight thereby making him look big and intimidating. That helped him scare his enemy away!!
So that explains the goosebumps while scared. What about goosebumps when we feel cold. Why is that ? When the ape felt cold and its hair stood upright, what happened as a side effect is that some air got trapped inbetween the hair strands, thereby forming the ape's very own air envelope, keeping it warm. Aha!
Okie.. so the goosebumps helped the ape. We've lost the fur. Why do we still get them ? Does it do any good to us ? As far as I know, it doesn't. It's just a trait we carried with us over the aeons. Who know, maybe we might end up losing this trait over the years.
Thus finished the over enthused teacher in me .. and was eagerly waiting for my son's eyes to light up in his very own aaha moment. But no.. he just seemed confused. Patience is a highly appreciated trait in a teacher, so I start all over again ..
My son's eyes flash a quick alarmed look and he said," Maaa .. No.. No.. Not from the beginning. I understood .. but I've a big question that's bothering me".
(Uneasy silence for a few seconds, and then my son bursts out..) "Why are they called goose bumps? There were no geese in the story you just told me ."
My smile quietly vanished. I was like ," Damn.. why am I always unprepared. And why didn't I think of that?!?"
I deftly changed the topic , and looked it up in the internet (later) and then said ," Those days, when people used to eat geese , they first plucked its feathers out , cleaned it, then cooked it. And what was left in the skin after the plucking resembled the bumps that we got when cold. Hence the name goosebumps"
He seemed mostly convinced.. but I could see that something still bothered him. I quickly picked up the phone and craftily held it in my hand (my plan B in place) and in an attempt to help him get it all out, asked him,"That's cool isn't it?".
I could see his eye brows furrow in thought and after right about three seconds I saw a small smile break through his tiny lips. He says ," Ma, maybe the English people ate more geese than chicken back then. That's why they noticed goose skin first and named this goosebumps".
Thankful that he didn't ask me the question and marvelled at the fact that he was able to come up with a convincing answer ( immaterial of whether it was factually right or wrong ), I hugged him tight and gave him a hi-five. It was really rewarding to see the aha moment in his eyes..
Later, to satisfy my curiosity, I looked up the etymology of the word goosebumps and read that the word has gone through lot of changes over the days. Was called goose flesh earlier, even duck skin once upon a time . And also that different languages use different names of poultry.. but no definitive reason as to why and how it ended up as goosebumps. So unless proved otherwise, I'm going to stick to my son's logic.... maybe the English men did like their goose afterall!
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